Chapter 7. "I'm looking for a woman..."
* * *
Nothing happened.
There was a moment when it seemed to Lena that her hands were translucent, and her clothes were vibrating finely as if every thread was being electrocuted. The girl squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the lights to turn off again, and the outlines of the familiar, so familiar apartment would appear around her...
But that was all there was to it. Kansas didn't disappear, and the world around her remained where it was, down to the last blade of grass and the unfamiliar star in the alien sky. The episode had passed without any consequences.
She had no strength left to even cry. The immense fatigue, grief, and disappointment enveloped the unhappy woman in a dark canopy, plunging her into a borderline state between sleep and fainting. And so the night passed quietly, without incident. Only in the distance, there was a loud and mighty croaking. Like an ordinary frog, but the size of a bull, no less.
Lena woke up, or rather fell out of a semi-consciousness, in the morning, before sunrise. It could not be said that she had not rested at all. Still, for a city girl, the conditions were more laconic than Spartan - a small felt pad instead of a pillow and a thin, though warm cloak instead of a mattress. But on the whole, fatigue was relegated to the background. Perhaps Lena would have walked on her own feet for a few more hours despite the pain deeply embedded in the ligaments and muscles of her legs.
The sentry - it was Kai - was sitting over the cold fire, holding his sword in his lap. He turned his head toward Lena and, after a moment's hesitation, turned back. The girl rubbed her palms together, dispersing the blood. They had tied her up quite neatly, leaving a small gap between the wrists and a short "leash" from a cartwheel. So the blood circulation was not interrupted, and some freedom of movement remained. The knots were very clever. Lena didn't know such, and in the usual fibers were woven thin black threads, glossy in the moonlight. Perhaps the cord was magical, too, so that it could not be cut in secret.
A wizard named Bizo snored in his sleep. A wounded man with a broken leg mumbled softly in his half-slumber. Shena curled under her cloak, cuddling her spear like a long-awaited lover. In her sleep, in the soft moonlight, her angry face softened, and her features smoothed. Usually, sleeping people are serene, but a shadow of sadness lingered on the black-haired woman's face. It was as if she had been dreaming a long and unhappy dream.
But the leader Santeli was awake. He half-lounged and silently looked at Lena with impenetrable dark eyes. Under that gaze, the girl felt very uncomfortable, and she turned in the other direction in the course of the former movement of the small column. There, in the distance, flickered distant lights scattered, merging into a patch the size of a fingernail or even smaller. Fire. And judging by the fact that the blur didn't change, it wasn't a fire; it must have been the Geataichean that the bandits had mentioned several times.
Gate.
"Go to bed," Santelli said softly to the sentry. "There's something about me that makes me sleepy. I'll stay up till morning."
Kai nodded silently and gratefully. After a few minutes, he fell asleep in silence, with his sword on his chest and his tightly rolled-up jacket under his head. He never took off his chainmail.
Lena shuddered, lifted her head sharply, and the remnants of her drowsiness flew off her like an old cobweb in a gust of wind. The girl realized she knew the meaning of the word "Geataichean". And she understood what the leader had said to the swordsman. Apparently, the mysterious shimmer hadn't gone away after all. This time it gave the alien from the other world knowledge of the language.
She felt very cold, a shiver stabbing at her heart. Her hands became numb and insensitive under the ropes. Lena was frozen with fear. And incomprehension. And vice versa, a creepy understanding that the seizure did not bring her closer to home but rather cemented her presence here.
"You understand me."
The bearded man was still watching carefully. He spoke softly but not in a whisper. Trustingly, but with palpable superiority. Like a well-fed tiger that doesn't want to kill. Not yet. She wonders if there are tigers here. If so, it would be the beast of choice for the chief.
"Yes," said Lena, just as quietly.
Santelli frowned, and she belatedly realized that she had answered in her native language.
The knowledge was beating somewhere close by, as if behind the melting ice grid of memory. This is what happens when one learns a language as a child and then does not use it at all for many years. Afterward, the speech seems both familiar and incomprehensible at the same time.
"Dtha," the local "yes," turned out to be very close to Russian.
"That's good," shook Santelli's head.
They were quiet for a while.
"Who are you?" asked the leader. "Where are you from?"
Again it took Lena some time. The newfound knowledge worked like an old water balloon toy with inscriptions on plastic tablets. First, the memory had to be well shaken, and then the right wording, or rather words that had to be tried together, popped into her head.
"I ... talk... bad," she said with difficulty.
"I understand," Santeli said, not objecting but rather stating. He looked around, listening, cocking his head and wiggling his ear amusedly. And then he repeated. "Who are you?"
"I... don't know."
"You don't know? Or don't ..."
Her answer didn't seem to surprise him at all. But Lena did not understand the last word. Or rather, several possible meanings jumped into her head at once. "Memory"... yes, "memory" seems to be the root word here. So, most likely, Santelli asked - does not know or does not remember, has forgotten.
And how should she answer that? To tell a story about suddenly falling out of her world to no one knows where?
"I don't know," she decided.
"I think you're trying to trick me," smiled the bandit. His smile was kind of scary. Quite open, without a vicious grin, but... it made the bearded chieftain look more like a tiger, fully aware of his power.
Lena gritted her teeth and clenched her awkward, still numb fingers into fists. She doesn't want to go off on a tantrum or an excuse. Or ridiculous attempts to tell him about her former life. Hold on, hold on, under the cold gaze of the man with the axe!
"Anything can happen. Maybe you're running away from someone. Maybe you've lost your memory with a spell," Suntelli said thoughtfully. "That's none of our business. The question is... What can you do?"
"Do?" repeated the girl mechanically.
"Tomorrow, even before sundown, we will return to the Gate," explained Santelli kindly. He spoke slowly and very intelligibly. "There, we will have to decide what to do with you. I can sell you. I can put you to work as an apprentice, as a servant, for a fee. What can you do?"
Things got very confusing. It seems that from the ringleader's point of view, selling people was something quite ordinary. Jesus, what is this place so creepy?
"I ... probably ..." Lena wondered.
And what can she really do that is useful in the here and now?
"Do you know any other tricks like that?" Santelli made an eloquent gesture of putting his fingers to his neck, imitating a pulse check.
"N-not much," Lena said quickly. "I guess so. I need to remember."
"Try to remember," Santelli advised him very seriously, without a trace of humor. "That will decide your fate. Tomorrow.
"And if you let me go?" This time the verbal construction came out almost immediately.
"Someone else will sell you," now, Santelli seemed a little surprised at the naivete of his guest. Such an expression might have appeared on the face of a man in front of whom they began to eat soup with a knife and pulled a shoe over the head.
"You're not from around here," it sounded like a statement again. It was as if Santelli were thinking out loud.
"Yes, yes," Lena repeated the answer to be sure. "Distant lands. Very."
Again a distant and huge frog squawked. As if to echo it, something howled from the opposite side of the camp. The howl sounded like a cat's snarl, laced with very high-pitched shrieks. The leader didn't even turn his head, so there was probably no danger in the night.
"It's all amazing," Santelli sighed, running the braid between his fingers. "And mysterious. You're strange."
He looked at her point-blank. Lena tried, out of sheer stubbornness, to hold his gaze, and lasted ten seconds, even a little longer. Then she looked away.
"Tomorrow, I'll bring you to the Apothecary," Santelli didn't ask or speculate. Now he was just putting it out there. And the word "Apothecary" was pronounced with a certain reverence. "Try to surprise, there. Show there something else ... medicinal. You'll be an apprentice. Maybe. And no one will ask who you are. Where you come from. What you do."
"What if I can't?"
"You really are from very faraway places," Santelli sighed with the look of an adult who has heard cute childish nonsense. "Trust me, anything else won't make you happy."
"I can also fight!" Lena remembered the rapiers crossed over the fireplace and the fencing lessons. A wave of self-confidence and even a slight annoyance pelted the girl - how could she have forgotten! It was a world of magic and the sword. And she knew how to wield a sword. Not really a sword, of course, but a rapier, and to tell you the truth, not that well. But she was decent enough, better than most. Most importantly, she knew the techniques, knew the theory, and had a sense of distance. Her knowledge grew out of fencing, which had evolved over the centuries from barbarism to an exact science and sports discipline. This meant that Lena was knowingly several steps above any medieval fighters.
"Fight?" Santelli looked surprised. "You don't look like a fighter. Your nose isn't broken. All your teeth are in place."
"I know how to wield a long, narrow blade," the young swordswoman explained, trying to find the right, most accurate words. "I am skilled in the art of combat."
"Do you know how to fight in formation and back-to-back?" clarified the bandit. "Under the banner, in large and small units?"
"No," said Lena patiently. "I know how to fight with a sword."
"Then you don't own the fight," retorted Santelli. "But ..."
The ringleader hummed, showing offensive disbelief in Lena's claimed talents.
"We'll see where you stand in the morning."
* * *
Morning crept up. Though the people were awake in the predawn twilight, no one was in any hurry to leave the enchanted circle until the sun had risen. Everyone was washing their faces. They poured water from a separate bag on a rag and carefully wiped their faces and necks. Everyone had his rag. From the smell, some light herbal fragrance was mixed into the leather bag, and it smelled unobtrusive yet pleasant at the same time. However, the smell was not associated with any flora known to Lena. No fire was lit. The girl had water poured into her outstretched palms but very little, and the wizard's face read clear condemnation. Not targeted, but rather, in general, concerning the consumption of precious moisture.
She did not notice anything like the prayers she was used to. Either it was not common here, or the rituals were too different from what she was used to, and Lena simply did not notice them.
The news that the uninvited guest spoke (albeit poorly) in human language was taken by the public quite calmly, even philosophically. In general, Elena has a strong feeling that her fellow travelers perceive the world somewhat differently than she does. Somehow ... calmly. More detached in terms of cause and effect. They were worried about what was happening here and now. Perhaps it was the effect of their dangerous lives and frequent proximity to death, perhaps the presence of magic in the world. Although it could be a misinterpretation, Lena's experience with the natives was still minuscule.
And then Santelli, as promised, gave the guest the opportunity to show off her skills.
Viall, the fighter in the thick wool coat and the hat that seemed to be attached to his head burst out laughing, not even trying to hold back. Wizard Bizo hid his smirk in the shadow of his hat. Kai frowned with an expression of extreme skepticism. Shena, on the other hand, smiled broadly and quite genuinely, her whole look of anticipation. It was a beautiful smile, but it was a wicked one. The spearwoman stepped onto the patch between the fire and the inner boundary of the guard circle and deftly turned her short spear like a Shaolin monk, but did not stand up in cunning stances, only slightly crouched on springy legs.
Lena looked around. Apparently, no one was going to offer her a weapon. But even if they had... Only now, she thought about the fact that there was a clear shortage of rapiers in the team. So she had nothing to show for it. However, today she felt a little more confident.
Lena turned to Santelli and silently measured a distance of about a meter in the air with her hands. Just like the day before, when they made a splint for the wounded Codure. The chief looked intently at the whole affair. He shrugged and tossed her the stick they used to hang the kettle from when they cooked. The stick, by the look of it, was multipurpose, knowingly longer than necessary for its primary purpose.
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Lena deftly caught it, tried it on her hand, and swung it a few times. It was a bit heavy, the center of gravity was not where it should be, but it would do. She stood in a classic stance. Right foot in front, knees springing, left foot slightly unloaded, a point at left eye level. The free arm is behind, slightly up, and loosely half-bent. Everything is subject to the "one vertical plane" rule.
It was uncomfortable to hold the stick. Her fingers immediately stiffened without a comfortable handle, but her body seemed to respond, joyfully remembering the learned movements. Lena smiled, enjoying the feeling of newfound strength, performed a short parade, and indicated a slight bow toward her opponent. Shena seemed to take this as a taunt. She frowned and clenched her teeth so that her lips turned into a thin, pale line. Her fingers clenched on the shaft of the spear.
"No," Santeli threw in briefly. He snapped his fingers and made a short gesture to Kai. The swordsman quickly replaced Shena as if just waiting for that. The spear maiden was visibly upset but did not argue. Only the spear in her hands trembled as if begging for blood.
"By the clap," warned Santelli.
Kai had his sword in his right hand and a short cloak hanging loosely on his left. He had a frontal and "counter" stance against Lena, which meant that Kai didn't put his left leg back, but instead put it slightly forward.
The sword looked solid, with a simple guard and an elongated hilt that could be held with both hands or, as now, with one. It made the swordswoman a little nervous that the blade was real, uncovered. On the other hand, it looked like a weapon for a wide stout swing. And that meant that the heavy iron trunks were doomed to lose to a measured, mathematically precise, and swift jab.
The whole gang went silent, and even the horse seemed to squint its big dark eye at the duelists. Lena swallowed and repeated to herself the sequence of actions she had learned in regular training. No tricky combinations, just the simplest, quickest, and most proven. A classic jab with a single feint and minimal displacement of the tip. In the chest, closer to the neck, so that the hit is visible and palpable. It is desirable not to hit the face, or the improvised "rapier" can smash into the blood.
Her muscles were humming like steel strings stretched to the limit, demanding movement, attack, victory. Kai, on the other hand, seemed relaxed and as if he were settling, as if all his muscles wanted to drain from his bones to the ground. Even the cloak on his arm hung limply and sadly.
Inhale and exhale. The rising sun wasn't blinding, and her feet were firmly planted on the dry, hard ground so she wouldn't slip. The faintest scent of washing water still tickled her nostrils.
Santelli didn't clap but snapped his fingers. And...
It happens that consciousness begins to lag behind the vision. The eye captures something, but by the time reflection comes, everything has already changed rapidly. Moments before the attack began, Kai in turn, did... incomprehensible what. It was as if a huge bat had flapped its wings. The next second the swordswoman realized that the swordsman had thrown his cloak over her. It wasn't a musketeer's way of deflecting a lunge. It was a special way of throwing it, covering her like a gladiator retiarius net. In a split second, Lena realized this and waved her stick, trying to sweep the cloak aside while taking a well-earned step back. But Kai was already coming off the ground in a powerful throw, body forward, just like an American soccer player in a breakout. And when the swordswoman realized she had to go even farther to the side and back, her opponent hit her.
In fact, the blow was not strong, the swordsman certainly did not want to hurt his opponent. It was not even so much a blow as a stretched, strong jolt. Lena rolled over the ground and found herself on all fours, dropping her "weapon".
Santelli chuckled, and the rest of the gang expressed their feelings in a much more open and unrestrained manner. Kai nodded silently to them all at once, as if thanking them for the honors, and just as silently turned to Lena with a mute question. The girl gritted her teeth and raised her "rapier." Kai threw up his hands, demonstrating that he no longer had his cloak on him.
Gritting her teeth to the point of crunching, Lena got back into position. The gang's taunts burned like nettles on fresh abrasions. Everyone was on Kai's side and made no secret of it. Out of resentment, the girl felt an acute desire to humiliate her opponent in return. To bend in front of his comrades. Demonstrate her superiority in the most insulting way possible. In the corner of her mind, she knew that Kai had only won a training fight, but... it was all becoming very personal.
"And now without ..."
Lena did not understand the last word of Santelli, but in tone and root, it meant something like "a weak trick," or "a giveaway".
"Are you ready?" Kai asked grimly. And again, judging by his tone, he didn't mean technically ready but rather determined to go on.
Lena only performed the parade in silence. Not out of respect for her opponent but more out of habit. The swordsman intercepted the sword with both hands and brought it out to the side, twisting the body slightly so that the long handguard bar partially covered his face. Lena noticed fleetingly that the sword seemed to have seen better days. There were small empty slots at the base of the blade, the guard and the tip, and some sort of file-cut rivets. It was as if the weapon had been adorned with applied details and jewels. Now there was only a strictly functional base without any ornamentation. Also, the blade was single-bladed, though it repeated Lena's usual form of a knight's sword. But all this flashed in a kaleidoscope of images because her muscles were already in motion, acting like an extremely assembled and well-coordinated mechanism.
The tutors would have been proud of the student given her long lack of training. The stab was excellent - good technique, multiplied by the energy of rage. This time Kai was really late with his parry, caught in a false lunge, and then the "tip" of the improvised rapier struck the pelerine, below his throat, exactly the width of his palm.
And ... the fight continued.
The sword dropped flat in an arc from top to bottom and the side, knocking the stick down, and Kai was already shifting his weight from foot to foot, swinging forward like a cobra in a rush. Santelli expected the swordsman to execute a typical countermove - an interception of the enemy's blade with his weak hand and a sharp blow to the face with the hilt. It's hard and sharp, usually with the right punch - and Kai was a very good fighter - the hilt takes out the eye, but the redhead just asking for it. Shena would have nailed her with an ahlspies as early as the first round. Once again, however, the swordsman took pity on his opponent. He simply stepped forward and hit the swordswoman head-on, not even on the nose. That was the end of the fight, to the disappointed roar of the audience. Bizo looked sad - he wanted to bet a few pennies on Kai's victory, but no one accepted the bet because it was a foregone conclusion.
Lena sat with her back to the cartwheel, trying to stop the ringing in her ears. Her forehead rumbled like a pile under a coping hammer. Weakness spread through her body. But it was a cosmic, boundless incomprehension that was stronger - how could all this have happened?
It happened a long, long time ago, as a child, when she had brilliantly learned a poem on a dare with Grandpa, spending the whole weekend on it, and was ready to recite it, winning a special prize. But it turned out that the girl mixed up pages in the assignment and learned the wrong poem. Most insulting of all was the understanding, stubbornly breaking through the insulted pride - the opponent probably did not do anything mean or dishonest. She was the one who had rushed to show off her skills without finding out what the rules of the fight were.
And in the background, a sad thought stirred - her fighting skills didn't belong here. At least not without serious retraining.
"What do you say?" asked Santelli in a low voice.
The Brigadier was very good with weapons and, in principle, could have fought Kai almost on equal terms, axe with a shield against a sword. But the swordsman had a good, proper school of combat under his belt, and he saw things that could pass the eyes of Santelli, who had been taught only by brutal practice.
"Interesting," stretched out the usually terse Kai. "Very interesting."
He was silent, and Santelli waited patiently, seeing that his interlocutor was not stretching out a dramatic pause but was looking for the right words.
"She's been taught, and not badly," Kai finally said. "But taught ... strange. As if her school didn't use armor at all.
"Hmm..." pondered Santelli. "Oh, that's right, she poked you in the chainmail and stopped like that was the end of the fight."
"Yeah. I've seen that in ..." Kai hesitated. "Anyway, it's purely dueling practice. A desperation technique in a fight with a knowingly stronger opponent. "Stab faster and more than you get stabbed," with no regard for defense or "Retaliation."
"What?" the foreman didn't understand.
"When one is almost killed, still chops or stabs in a last effort," Kai explained.
"And where do they teach that?" asked the down-to-earth foreman.
"I have no idea. One thing's for sure, they don't train like that in Monasteries and Martial fraternities," the swordsman looked just as puzzled as his commander. "I'd wager she was trained by some dumbass brether... They make up all sorts of "marvelous schools of unstoppable skill" and run around with them, taking money from simpletons. Until they run into a good fighter."
Kai thought for a while again. And then he finished:
"But it only moves back and forth, like a narrow path, and the "Master's Circle" or "Long Cross" is the first place any mentoring begins."
Santelli spat with an overabundance of impressions.
"And you noticed all that from two short skirmishes?" he clarified, just in case.
Kai wrinkled his face in the grimace of an offended professional. He turned away in silence and went back to the cart. It looked on the verge of disrespect, but the brigadier knew that he had provoked the best fighter with his obvious doubt.
"Strange things are happening," muttered the brigadier, and thought of blessing himself with a holy sign but changed his mind and said only words. "Pantocrator, protect and preserve," and then he commanded. "Let's pack up! Time is of the essence. I want to see the smoke of the Gate by sundown.
Anyway, everyone was already turning down camp at a brisk pace. Everyone was anxious to get back as soon as possible, to face the night in a clean bed and a clean nightgown. Or in a decent inn, over a mug of beer, not magically preserved water with the taste of spider urine.
"Get in the cart," mercifully ordered the foreman to the redhead, who was still reeling from the blow to her head. The scarlet mark adorned her forehead in a most picturesque place, strictly in the center.
Biso went over his markings, carefully erasing them so that Pantocrator wouldn't pull the "thread". Kai checked his sword, for he knew that usually, the worst trouble comes last when you don't expect it. An inner voice told the swordsman that the adventure wasn't over yet.
Lena was used to experiencing her failures seriously, trying to learn the most from them. Her mother's perfectionism was also partly to blame; a strict woman, a typical "self-made woman" from the remote provinces, never allowed her daughter to put the brakes on a mistake. On the contrary, she would go back to the failure over and over again until it turned out to be corrected. Therefore, the defeat plunged the girl into deep grief, and Lena automatically expected the others that she would not forget the shameful loss. But the locals had a very different attitude to life. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about the morning's fight, deeply and completely lost in their travel worries. Even the stern Shena stopped casting gloomy glances at Lena, which clearly showed what the warrior would do to the uninvited guest if it were up to her will.
On reflection, Elena decided it must be because fighting must be the norm of life here. So a catastrophic failure for her was a passing amusement for everyone else. Sitting was tough. The cart turned out to be filled with some crates, barrels, and small implements, among which Lena recognized only a few items like a large-mesh net, a lantern with a half-burned candle, a bunch of short, thick arrows with plumage of thin shavings. I guess the gang didn't have enough money to buy a horse for everyone, so they used a cartload of stuff and work tools for the whole company.
How much time had passed, she could not say; probably two or three hours. The cart moved briskly enough at the speed of an ordinary pedestrian. Santelli cheered with every mile, while Kai, on the contrary, grew darker, not letting his sword out of his hands. All the more surprising that it was the brigadier who first noticed the new possible danger. And he immediately made the right decision.
"Get under the burlap," the ringleader commanded briefly, placing his palm on the axe. It seemed to be a traditional gesture for him on all occasions.
At first, Lena did not realize that the order referred to her, but Bizo understood correctly. He ducked her head lower with unexpected strength for his build and pulled a tarpaulin of the very coarse and thick thread of sparse weave over her head. Nearby sniffled the wounded Codure, who had been dozing all the way, waking only to a morning bandage and a mug of water. For a moment, Lena felt a prick of smugness. After all, it was she who had almost pulled the sufferer from the other side of the world, and his sleep no longer resembled a deathbed lethargy. Then pride gave way to anxiety.
Something seems to happen all the time in this "Kansas"...
"There's nothing to show the girl to the world," muttered Santelli. "It's not a market, there's no money in it."
Kai lightly knocked Lena over the head with his blade, flat through the burlap.
"Stay low," the swordsman warned.
Now the whole brigade could see what the commander was worried about. A small cavalry unit appeared from the east. So far, the men on tiny horses seemed no bigger than half a little finger, but they were approaching fast. And that meant the cavalrymen were looking for the pack of Proffitt hunters.
"Somehow, they're looking for adventure close to the Gate," Bizo remarked with some surprise.
Viall was silent as usual, preparing his spear and pulling his hat tighter. Shena, too, checked the point of the ahlspies with her thumb, which was already capable of scratching diamonds. Kai pulled a simple helmet with an arrowhead without a screw from the cart.
"Six," Santeli reported, using the perforated plate. "And I don't see anybody behind them. Put up the horse."
Shena held back horse number three. The cart shuddered and stopped with a slight creak.
"Well, if it's not an ambush, the vagabonds won't get away with it," thought Shena aloud. "It's almost evenly matched."
Santelli said nothing. As a brigadier, he stepped forward, deceptively calm, with a dagger in one hand and an axe in the other. The bowstring of the crossbow, drawn by the hidden Bizo, creaked. The alchemist knew his place in the fight - behind and under the cart, trying not to get hit, thrusting his arrows and dagger into the enemy's belly as best he could.
"It's Ranyan," Kai said, wrapping the cloak of the day tightly around his arm.
In the meantime, the cavalrymen were close enough to see their armor and equipment. They did not look like sergeants but were close to it. The first had long black hair, shoulder-length and low, waving in the wind, unprotected by helmet or cap, not even a strap.
"'Ranyan-" repeated Santelli, looking as if he had chewed an entire pod of island peppers.
"With him, we'll part ways," Shena suggested quietly.
"No spares horses," Kai pointed out.
No one answered; it was clear enough. No spares meant that the party was off the road and headed this way to meet the brigade. Or maybe the cavalry had gone on a long march and had exhausted their horses, which meant they were at work.
Ranyan was known as an honest and very obliging man, which in his job as a free mercenary routier was not easy but profitable. He was also extremely principled, would not kill children, and would not kill women unless paid twice as much. An encounter with a mercenary on the eve of the Gate could pass without incident - unless the brigade was part of his new order. And it promised a bloody stabbing if there was a conflict of business interests.
The horse unit shifted from galloping to trotting and then to walking at a steady pace. The horses didn't look completely exhausted, but they looked tired. So did the dust-covered riders. They wore thick leather armor, small shields, and "ratty" cleavers forged from a single piece of metal so that the hilt was a thin bar bent forward and upward as a staple to cover their fingers. The staple did indeed resemble a rat's tail, hence the name. Two of them had short jeridical spears in special cases on their saddles.
The cavalry leader gestured nonchalantly to stop his small army and moved the horse forward a few paces more himself. His long, very dark, bluish hair hung loose on either side of his face, without plaits or shaved temples. The short mustache and goatee were very neatly trimmed, though the stubble gave away the fact that he had been on the road for days. The face and hairstyle were those of a professional fencing fraternity batterer. Normally they flaunted heavy two-handed swords, but this fighter had no weapons on his belt except a pair of daggers. But by the saddle in a simple wooden sheath hung a long "piercer" - a heavy cavalry sword, which some particularly strong and skilled knights took in addition to the spear. It was impossible to cut with it - the sword was a long faceted awl without a blade. But if you were fast enough, you could pierce the strongest armor and even ordinary chainmail that was worn on the badlands, "piercer" sews like a needle's handkerchief.
All this was obvious and understandable to Santelli and any other member of the brigade. Lena, lurking under the mantle and watching through the tiny hole, saw only a grim and sinisterly handsome warrior on horseback. He looked more like a musketeer from the movies, a sort of Rochefort with the cold, arrogant look of a natural warrior. He looked as if his hair had come straight out of the seventeenth century.
"My respects," Ranyan was supposed to introduce himself first according to unwritten rules, which he did.
"Greetings," Santelli nodded, not letting go of his weapon. It wasn't very polite, but it was within the bounds of propriety. A wasteland is a wasteland, and the mercenary had not announced his purpose, not even dismounted.
The brigadier did not see the redheaded girl hiding under the cloak. But if he had, he would have been very surprised. Lena was petrified, closing her eyes and clenching her fists. A chilling terror gripped her, an unbearable panic. When "Rochefort" spoke, she recognized that deep, strong voice.
Riadag. The sound of severed flesh, the cries, and pleas of the murdered. The corpses on the road, the murdered girl. Her dead gaze and the mute, endless cry to the sky. The voice of the calm, cold-blooded killer who sought Riadag. Now she understood what the word meant.
Spark.
"I'm looking for a person," Ranyan said with a grim calm in which a note of mortal fatigue rang out. "A woman. A red-haired woman, probably young. Most likely, she is dressed in an unusual, strange way and has a poor mastery of human speech. If you have met her, I am prepared to reward you generously. Very generously."
* * *